Centenary

Our specific work relating to the Great War Centenary and how we have been dealing with it.

2014 events:

Date boards commemorating the start of the Great War Centenary, created by Councillor Russell Brown.

We began the Centenary of the Great War in our area, on Saturday 5th August 2014 by parading the standard of Keighley branch of the Old Contemptibles' Association, on a hill overlooking Oxenhope in front of a set of placards depicting the years 1914 and 2014 with a large poppy, made by Councillor Russell Brown and local schoolchildren.

We were honoured by the presence of Lord Mayor of Bradford Councillor Mike Gibbons, who very kindly attended this event and held the standard with us to mark the occasion.

Andy Wade describes the standard of the Keighley Old Contempibles' Association

Shortly afterwards, in association with Keighley Town Council and Mayor Graham Mitchell, we held a ceremony in Keighley's Town Hall Square which remembered the "Old Contemptibles", in particular, the men of Keighley and District who returned from the war and later set up the Keighley branch of the Old Contemptibles' Association. We paraded their standard, read out the names of the men from our archived records who were members of the association after the war, and held a reception for the relatives of these men.

This was complemented by an exhibit on the Old Contemptibles Association in Keighley Library. which was later moved to the large display cabinet in Airedale Shopping Centre in the fortnight prior to Remembrance Day.

On Remembrance Day we produced a list of those from the area who had been killed in 1914, and names were also read out at Haworth and Oakworth of the men from those villages who died in that year.

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About our Project

Why 'Men' of Worth?
When we started researching in 2003, we found only names of men on local memorials and as we felt their sacrifice had 'worth' and most of them lived around the river Worth we felt the name was apt. Also, Keighley's motto is By Worth, which fits rather neatly with our name. We have since expanded our remit to include everyone from Keighley and the Worth Valley who served in wartime.
Our Project researches local people from Keighley and the Worth Valley who served the country in wartime. Our earliest records are of soldiers who fought before the Battle of Waterloo!
We follow all available sources of information and use the information in these sources to create a biography about each person for our archive.

Please contact us through our 'Submit' page form to add a person to the archive.

If you would like to work with us or join our Project, please visit our 'Contact' page under 'About' in the menus at the top of this page.